Policy Research Analyst
Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury
- Nashville, TN
- Permanent
- Full-time
- Working individually and in a team environment to analyze complex issues in a variety of topic areas.
- Collecting and analyzing data.
- Conducting interviews.
- Developing and administering surveys and compiling survey results.
- Producing detailed publications including text, graphs, tables, and exhibits.
- Responding to requests for information from legislators, the Comptroller of the Treasury, and other officials.
- Monitoring legislative committees and analyzing the fiscal impact of legislation.
The Office of Research and Education Accountability received the following letter from a legislator requesting a study. Review the letter below and formulate a research plan.At a minimum your research plan should include:
- Research questions and hypotheses
- What types of quantitative and qualitative data will be collected?
- How will the data be analyzed?
- Limitations
LETTER:
Dear Comptroller Mumpower,It has come to my attention that Tennessee students with disabilities across the state are being subjected to "informal exclusionary discipline practices,” which negatively impacts their education. These are practices that almost exclusively affect Tennessee students with disabilities, limiting their access to educational opportunities, the least restrictive environment for learning and the rights and protections afforded to them through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). I would appreciate it if the Office of Research and Educational Accountability could research the issue and report back your findings."Informal Exclusionary Discipline Practices" can be characterized by the following practices:
- Informal removal: directives to parents/guardians to visit a child's school and take them home for the day, often as a result of behaviors manifesting from their disability, without recording the removal as a formal suspension/removal.
- Inappropriate homebound placement: the placement of a student receiving special education services in the hospital/homebound setting (as defined by IDEA) as a result of behaviors manifesting from their disability, or without following proper protocol as defined by IDEA (including for inappropriately lengthy periods of time).
- Excessive use of threat assessments: the use of a threat assessment to remove a student who receives special education services for behaviors that are manifestations of their disability, particularly for lengthy periods of time and/or without progress toward the completion of the threat assessment and/or return to school or alternative placement.
- Alternative placement (or threats of alternative placement): the placement of students receiving special education services in alternative, non-general education settings (such as an alternative school) in inappropriately and/or frequent instances, without proper intervention and data collection (as defined by IDEA) or under coercive circumstances.
- Inappropriate use of in-school suspension (ISS): frequent use of in-school suspension, or other formal or informal in-school removal from the assigned education setting, as punishment for behaviors that manifest from a disability from a student who receives special education services, particularly without proper documentation, intervention or instruction.
- Inappropriate suspension from transportation: the use of long-term prohibitions from using school-supplied transportation arising from behaviors that manifest from a disability, without providing alternative means to access the school or without due process protections afforded to students with disabilities through IDEA
- Excessive use of shortened school day: excessive or long-term use of shortened school day as an IEP intervention for behavior that manifests as a disability, often without adequate intervention and documentation, or no plan or timeline for a return to full school day schedule
OPTIONAL EXERCISE 2: If you have past experience in STATA or another statistical analysis software, please explain what steps you first take when you receive new data. What commands do you use and why? What can you learn from those commands? Limit your response to 1 paragraph.
OPTIONAL EXERCISE 3:
Background: The following optional exercise includes data analysis for the Tennessee Promise Scholarship program, which provides last-dollar scholarships for graduates of Tennessee high schools to attend a Tennessee College of Applied Technology (TCAT), Tennessee community college, or a qualifying program at a Tennessee university tuition-free. Although all Tennessee high school graduates are eligible for Promise regardless of financial need or academic merit, students must meet a set of requirements to become and remain a Promise student. If a student does not complete one or more of these requirements, they are no longer eligible for the Promise scholarship.
Exercise: How would you describe the STATA output below to someone who does not have experience with statistical analysis? Please include both what we can learn from the output as well as any potential limitations of the model. Limit your response to 1-2 paragraphs.
Variable Key:
- oneyearcredit: A total for the number of credits a student accumulated during their first year of postsecondary education.
- ever_tnp: A binary indicator of whether a student started their postsecondary education as a Promise student.
- SYSTEM: Which higher education system the student is enrolled in (i.e., community college, TCAT, university).
- hsgpa2: The student’s high school GPA.
- totalagi: The average adjusted gross income (AGI) from each year a student filled out a FAFSA application.
- race2: The student’s race.